Portfolio: Sculpture Studio

Rachael Lashof

Project 2- Kinetics and Interactiviy
ANALYSIS:

Define and explore the critical issues of the assigned focus. Write on the possible implications of interactive oriented artwork. How can interactivity effect the way a work makes meaning? Brainstorm diggerent ways interactivity can enter into an artwork.

After researching process art for our last project, I have found that interactive and kinetic art are often a type of process art. It is to no surprise that kinetics works so easily into process art. Kinetic means something that has movement or shows energy. Process appears in varying degrees of importance to artists interested in kinetics. While the two artists I researched did have products that were essential to the piece, the process was important as well.

Claire Watkins is a kinetic artist interested in how things work. This relates directly to process – the process of how motors, hand cranks, or LED lights turn on and work. Though her work does have a final product that is important, unlike some of the process artists we studied, the process of making it is important as well. Movement in her pieces is usually generated through tiny motors, which are often hidden and silent. This inspires the audience to take a closer look and ask, how does this work? Why does it move?

The second artist I looked at was Rebecca Horn. Horn uses kinetics to give her objects human qualities, like the large Plexiglas domes representing breasts or the playing violins, representing humans dancing and singing. I think that Rebecca’s work implies a process as well. Though the final product is important, the human processes and movement that are implied through these works are important as well.

Through studying kinetic and interactive work, I have realized how closely it relates to process art. While many kinetic artists use movement simply to attract the viewer, other artists also use movement to show change over time, or a process. Kinetic and interactive art is an artistic approach to changing art from being simply the artist’s idea and work, to being a combination of the artist plus the audience’s work.